Purpose: To evaluate in healthy volunteers the usefulness of an abdominal compression belt in reducing acquisition time by stabilizing respiratory motion during whole-heart coronary magnetic resonance angiography (WHCMRA) using conventional navigator triggering.
Methods: In 10 healthy volunteers, we performed free-breathing 3-dimensional segmented true fast imaging with steady-state precession (trueFISP) WHCMRA using conventional navigator triggering without motion-adapted gating. We acquired images with the abdominal compression belt rolled tightly around the upper abdomen and without the belt. We compared image acquisition time, navigator efficiency, and visible length of coronary arteries using paired t-test and subjective image quality on a 4-point scale (1, poor; 4, excellent) using Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
Results: There were no statistically significant differences for mean acquisition time (11.5±5.0 vs. 9.3±2.4 min, P=0.150); navigator efficiency (38.7±13.6 vs. 42.8±11.0%, P=0.336); mean overall visible length of the coronary arteries (99.7±22.7 vs. 105.0±16.5 mm, P=0.530); or mean overall subjective image quality (2.5 vs. 2.7, P=0.297) between results obtained with and without the abdominal compression belt.
Conclusion: In this small group of healthy volunteers, the use of an abdominal compression belt did not reduce image acquisition time or improve image quality in trueFISP WHCMRA using conventional navigator triggering; however, the technique's feasibility requires additional consideration using other navigator-triggering methods for patients with irregular respiratory cycles.